SOn the parquet floor, beautiful, of an old world, untreated and lit with an egg-yolk light while it is not yet dark on the other side of the windows, he advances on tiptoe, his feet way too big for a 7 year old. As usual, when he got out of the bath earlier in the evening, he skipped the towel for his hair. He hates the feeling, it sends shivers down his spine, especially in his jaws. Small pools of clear water still mark his passage in the hallway leading to his grandmother’s bathroom. All this will not help him to stand up. Already he’s swaying a little more every day, because of this body that’s growing too fast – which seems to fill his giant father with joy. The doctor said it’s too fast, the muscles may not follow. He is disgusted; his body no longer responds with the same potato as his red remote-controlled car, the one that does somersaults. He falls all the time and does not see the walls coming into the street.
Don’t slip, don’t make noise. A soap bubble, a ninja in pajamas. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen… no, he crashes. He will have to start over, recount the wooden slats. Starting from the golden bar which delimits the corridor of the living room, it is the eighteenth, it is she who creaks like a drawbridge. At the same time, there is little risk that Mina will land. She is vegetating under her animal skin, in front of her figure skating. Is it the fur of a real dead animal, slaughtered to end up as a patchouli-scented bedspread? He is asking himself. If so, how could he find it beautiful and soft, to the point of getting up at night to roll around in it, while Mina made her strange noises, her “sleep apnea”.
All those golden tubes…
He ends up going to the bathroom, black and blue. It’s tall but not tall enough to reach his treasure chest; the cabinet with two mirrored doors, above the black washbasin. What a weird idea, this color for a sink. As a result, there are always traces of white toothpaste, it’s dirty. Afraid of making noise with the stool, he builds a mountain of towels and bath mats. He’ll fold everything up and put it away afterwards, I promise. And, finally, he opens the cupboard. And it dazzles him, as always. All these golden tubes, one on top of the other. He never manages to count them well, there are so many. The last time 52, another time 58. He will count again, but first… Today, which one will he choose? This one. Fine, engraved with swirling arabesques, he had never seen it before. He removes the cork and the tube appears. It rotates the system. The grape comes out. Again and again the same color. This pale, shiny orange, seen on no one, which doesn’t go at all with his pale skin, his washed-out eyes, which make him think of the gray puddles on the sidewalk when it’s rained. He doesn’t like much about him; his mother said to him: “But how is it possible at 7 years old not to love yourself so much when you’ve been loved so much? »
At first, he was disappointed to see that the 52 or 58 tubes of lipstick in his grandmother’s closet all housed the same color. But, since her mother never wears makeup, she says that’s the “traveling” or some other word like that, that’s the only place he can do it; draw their mouth and eyes. And then, he understood that it was better to do that here and not elsewhere, especially not where his giant father is dragging his rotten sneakers. He doesn’t seem to find it good. Dangerous, ridiculous, both, maybe. But him, now, over time, he loves this color and also the shape, all round, the same on all the sticks. He finished. He is more and more proficient in gestures. After the lips, the cheeks; the black on the eyes. He looks at himself. Like that, he likes his eyes. The black pencil under the khaki green of the pupils and the orange below, that does it.